Hybrid Regimes

Neil Lund

2024-10-24

Hybrid regimes

What about systems with elements of both autocracy and democracy?

  • Democracy can vary across groups or regions within a country
  • Some countries blend elements of democratic and non-democratic systems

Hong Kong

Special administrative region since 1984

Economically polarized, free, but under Chinese authority

Important for Chinese economy, but also in tension with governing structure

Structure of government

  • Chief executive elected by elites

  • Legislative branch is a mix of elites and popularly elected seats

  • Pro-regime faction vs. Pan-Democrats. Both sides use protest as a means to impose costs on others.

Protest activity

Precursors

Pre-2014 events

  • 2003 security legislation

  • 2006/2007 opposition to pier developments

  • 2009 railway demonstrations

  • 2012 Student’s protest

  • 2013 TV licensure protests

Student sit-in protesting the demolition of Star Ferry pier

Each round of events leads to new organizations, media outlets, and noted activists entering the scene

Demand for universal suffrage

Triggers

  • Activists promote at June 2014 civic referendum on electing a chief executive by popular vote. Chinese government releases a white paper that implies that Hong Kong has too much autonomy
  • Election referendum draws significant turnout.
  • Mainland committee rules in August: “the Chief Executive shall be a person who loves the country and loves Hong Kong” (pre-screening of candidates)

Student walk-out (September 22, 2014)

Occupation

  • Activists proposed an occupation of a central square in 2013, but had limited support

  • Event was planned for October 1 (a national holiday) but a handful of students jumped a fence in Civic Square on September 26 2014

State response

Umbrella revolution (2014)

Public response

  • Expanded contention

  • Non-violent but disruptive protests (umbrellas)

  • Polarization (emergence of anti-occupy protesters)

Drawdown

Anti-Extradition protests

  • February 2019: Chinese government proposes an extradition bill that would cover Hong Kong (as well as Macau and Taiwan)

    • Prompted by a murder case, but widely understood to have implications for dissent

  • Pan democrats attempt to filibuster, but legislative efforts are not effective

Anti-Extradition protests: Early stages

  • First protests in March/April 2019. Government proposes some amendments to raise the threshold for extradition in May.

  • June 9 2019 protest draws between 200,000 (police estimates) to over 1 million (organizer estimates) to the streets.

Anti-Extradition protests: Summer 2019

Video

Anti-Extradition protests: Five demands

Bill suspended on June 15, but protesters demand more concessions:

  • protests no longer be described as “riots”

  • amnesty for protesters

  • independent inquiry into police brutality

  • universal suffrage in executive elections

Anti-Extradition protests: Repertoire shift

  • Non-violent tactics:

    • marches, work-stoppages, protest art

  • Violent/Destructive tactics:

    • Black bloc, fights with police/counter-protesters

    • Attacks on pro-mainland businesses and celebrities

    • Economic disruption: occupations, coordinated cash withdrawal

  • Both factions used private messaging apps to coordinate, share information, and make decisions

protesters using a catapult against police

protesters using a catapult against police

Anti-Extradition protests: Repression

  • Mainland government used domestic censorship and international propaganda

  • Hong Kong police adopted aggressive protest policing tactics:

    • “less lethal” weapons: 16,000 rounds of tear gas in from June to December vs. 87 rounds in the entire 2014 occupation

    • kettling

    • tolerating violence from counter protesters

  • Counter protesters engaged in heated - often violent confrontations - with five demands protesters

Anti-Extradition protests: Repression

Yuen Long Station attack

The Yuen Long attack, believed to have been conducted by local villagers and gangs of triad (criminal secret society) members, shocked Hong Kong and led to a widespread belief that the Police were in collusion with triads. This event turned a substantial number of the passive Hong Kong population against the Police, and many people started to label the Police as ‘haak ging’ (黑警), or ‘black police’ - former Hong Kong police officer (source)

Anti-Extradition protests: trajectory

R-Code for ACLED events in Hong Kong

Anti-Extradition protests: Aftermath

  • 2020 bill criminalizes a wider range of dissent under prohibitions on “secession”, “subversion” or “terrorism”.

    • 260 arrests by July 2023, including prominent pro-democracy leaders

  • Allows Hong Kong residents to be extradited to mainland China for some crimes

  • Beijing appointed advisor to oversee a Hong Kong security force

  • Five Demands remain popular in polls, and National Security law is unpopular, but not clear this matters.

Hong Kong 47 (group of lawmakers arrested in 2021 under new laws)

Hybrid regimes and state legitimacy

Democracies and autocracies have different legitimization strategies. How do these work in a hybrid state?

Broadly:

  • Democracies legitimize through procedure: electoral competition, legislative negotiation, alternation in power, broad public participation and civic duty

  • Autocracies legitimize with outcomes: economic growth, stability, efficient delivery of services, mass spectacle

  • For many, Hong Kong offered neither during the 2019 protests

Hybrid regimes and protest

  • Hybrid regimes often prefer to channel or co-opt protests instead of repressing them out right

  • Especially if those protests only indirectly challenge the state:

    • Russian protests against raising the retirement age in 2018

    • Guatemalan anti-corruption protests in 2015

    • Protests around conditions for healthcare workers during Covid-19 in Pakistan

Hybrid regimes often permit protest through state approved channels